Thirty years after moving to Saudi Arabia for work, 58-year-old Musaddik Abbas Tandel returned home to Raigad hoping for a quiet retired life. Instead, a minor cut between his toes and routine unpacking work set off a rare and potentially fatal infection — melioidosis, caused by soil-borne bacteria. “I didn’t think much of the cut… it was small. But a few days later, the pain started. My knee swelled, and I began having difficulty breathing,” Tandel said.

A rare diagnosis

Melioidosis remains extremely uncommon and often under diagnosed. “This is only the fourth case I’ve seen in decades of practice,” said Dr Savla. Other specialists, including doctors from Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital and Lilavati Hospital, said they had not encountered such cases in their clinical experience, highlighting its rarity and the difficulty in identifying it early.